The present invention relates to a method and a device for flavoring tea and tea-like products, such as herbal teas, freeze dried teas, infusion etc., with preferably granulated flavoring agents whereby from a reservoir in which the flavoring agent is contained a predetermined amount of flavoring agent is removed, placed onto a strip of continuously transported envelope material, especially endless filter paper strips, together with a predetermined amount of tea, and is subsequently packaged in tea bags formed of the envelope material.
For the purpose of flavoring teas, it is known from German Offenlegungsschrift 37 01 230 to connect to a conventional tea packing machine a metering device for flavoring agent with which granules or agglomerates of the flavoring agents are added with two adjustable metering chambers in a defined amount to the tea. The fine tea material for filling the tea bags is divided with a metering wheel into identical portions within the tea bagging machine and is then placed in the from of small heaps onto the continuously moved envelope material, i.e the filter paper by a transport wheel. The metered addition of the flavoring agent to the tea is performed within the transport area between the metering wheel and the transport wheel whereby due to the movements of the machine parts a tea flavoring agent mixture will result which is then positioned in the form of heaps positioned onto the filter paper strip and packaged in the tea bags formed thereof.
It has been shown to be disadvantageous in the context of automatic metering processes to mix the tea and the flavoring agent. Flavoring agents are compositions of special natural, artificial, and nature-identical scenting and flavoring compounds which have sugar-like properties, some being hygroscopic, and have the tendency to separate from the fine tea to be filled in the tea bags or to agglomerate. All these properties result in soiling of the machine area between the metering wheel and the transport wheel where the addition of the flavoring agent takes place. In the end the soiling makes it impossible to provide for a uniform and reproducible addition of the flavoring agent. The metering rings become soiled by sticky deposits and the chambers within the metering wheel and the transport wheel become clogged so that the small heaps to be placed onto the filter paper strip will vary in size. In the end, it is necessary to perform frequent machine cleaning operations requiring demounting of machine parts.
From German Offenlegungsschrift 32 11 696 a method for manufacturing a flavoring preparation is known which is to be used for flavoring tea. Disadvantageously, this flavoring preparation is also mixed with the leaf tea and subsequently packaged in tea bags so that the aforedescribed disadvantages of the method occur in the same manner.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a method for flavoring tea or tea-like products, with which the aforementioned disadvantageous can be avoided and with which a safe metering of the flavoring agent without soiling of the machine, even at high packaging velocities of more than 300 tea bags per minute, is possible.